In this installment, Denver discusses what it means to have a firm mind in every form of Godliness.The right pathway is always filled with peril. King Benjamin said, and this is from the traditional account: (Mosiah 4:29-30 “I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.” That list is pretty all inclusive. We have to watch ourselves, we have to watch our thoughts, we have to watch our words, and we have to watch our deeds, and beyond that observe the commandments. King Benjamin could not tell us all of the ways we could fail to do those things. There really is no list that can be compiled that says, don’t do this and don’t do that, and don’t do this and don’t do that, and have an exhaustive list of all the don’ts. It can’t be done. In fact, about the only way to avoid all the don’ts is to have a handful of the do’s, the things that you ought to do in order to honor God. Christ summarized those basically in two brief statements: “Love God with all your heart”, and “love your fellowman as yourself”. It’s practically impossible for us to avoid errors by putting together a list of what to avoid, so I wouldn’t attempt it. Then there is the weakness of mind and spirit of mankind. Moroni discussed the ministering of angels and he described in these words: “neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men. For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness. And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him” (Moroni 7:29-31). If you go through those verses and you look at what he’s saying it requires a firm mind in every form of godliness. A firm mind can be descriptive of a variety of things including someone that’s just stubborn. But it’s not stubbornness, it’s a firm grasp on the things that lead to godliness, not excesses, not foolishness, and we’ll get more into that in a bit. Their purpose in ministering is to equip the person who has an audience and those who hear the message to be called to repentance; not a lot of flowery, fancy things but repentance, because essentially without repentance, that is turning to face God in all you do, none of us are going to make it. He goes on to say that the purpose of calling people to repentance is to “fulfil and do the works of the covenants” (Moroni 7:31). There is sort of a pattern here in what is happening. Angelic ministerence comes to people of a firm mind and every form of godliness, calls repentance in order to fulfil and in order to do the work of the covenants. “To fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father”, that requires that people bear testimony of Him. These are the essential things that are needed. It doesn’t require a fanciful or a flowery imagination. It does not require that we bear testimony of ourselves. It doesn’t require us to do something other than to fulfil and do the work of the covenants. Therefore, I would suggest this is a pretty good guide to consider when you’re evaluating all of the competing claims that are now being made by people, to having inspiration or revelation or the word of God to them. We are vulnerable to being mislead even as we claim to be inspired.